Hello everyone!
Seeing as it is my second week in Spain, I figured it was about time for my second post from Spain! Yesterday, the group and I started classes at the Aula School, that our host students attend. Now what makes Aula different, is that the kids begin there at around 3 years old, and but for a few exceptions, no new students enter at any higher levels. These kids form bonds with their classmates that last their entire childhoods. Not only that, but the Aula School prides itself in its multilingual approach; the kids are taught French, English, Spanish, and Catalan, and have a mastery of all four languages by high school! I find this very interesting and very exciting, since languages fascinate me.
The classes we attended yesterday were conducted in Spanish (except for English class) and I was very proud of myself when I realized I could understand everything, including Philosophy class! I found both the philosphy class and geography class very interesting, despite some doubts I had previously. After school (classes begin at 8:50 and end at 5:30!), me and a few other girls stayed late to watch our girls at basketball practice. The girls I´ve been in close contact with here in Spain all love basketball a lot! My host sister and her older brother Victor, even have a special soft spot for the 76ers!
I was very glad to see some of the group that I hadn´t been able to see last week, at school yesterday, and again today, when we went on a fun, but very, very rainy excursion with the exchange group from Boston which is sharing our time in Barcelona with other students, to the Dali museum and the town of Girona, and its large cathedral. I have lots of pictures and videos, but unfortunatly, I can´t post any without using my own laptop, which still is not connected to wifi. I´ll have to make a special post just for photos and videos when I get the chance! I really, really liked the Dali museum; there were lots of extremely strange things in there, but they were all very interesting and beautiful. The cathedral and the town of Girona were also beautiful, and on a sunny day, it would have been fantastic to walk along the cobbled streets of Girona, up the hills. Unfortunately, today it was raining A LOT.
Tomorrow, we have a half day of school, then we are taking the metro downtown and visiting the MNAC museum in Barcelona. I´m not sure what is in that museum, so that will be a surprise for me.
Right now it is about 5 minutes to 9 and I hear my host mother singing and bustling in the kitchen, which means dinner should be soon. They eat dinner very late hear, almost never sooner than 9 pm, and that is early! It gets hard sometimes to contain my hunger, but usually we have lots of little meals in between larger ones. Today, after lunch, we were lucky enough to find a gelato and gofre (waffle) shop called the Madonna in Girona, and almost all of us got waffles with ice cream and Nutella. Nutella is so delicious! I definitly will be buying some when I get home.
On the schedule for the rest of the week (weather permitting), are Greek and Roman ruins on Thursday, along with a visit to Cadaques, and on Friday, we are going to have a seminar about Picasso, then go to the center of Barcelona, probably by metro and/or bus, tour through the neighborhood of Raval, visit the iglesia Santa Maria del mar, and then the Picasso museum to end the day. The weekend is free to our host students to decide, and from what I´ve heard, Maria has a basketball game on Saturday, and there might be a surprise party on Sunday!
I´m liking Barcelona, my host family, and even classes at Aula a lot and I have definitly become closer with people on the trip, some of whom I never really talked very much to before. We´ve all shared an experience now, and so we can relate to each other in ways other people can´t.
More later (hopefully with pictures and videos!)
Adeu! (that´s Catalan!)
Westtown Senior Projects' Blog 